


The Ones Left Standing

by glorious_spoon



Series: Hurt/Comfort Bingo 2018 [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Drinking, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-20 23:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15544548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: Everyone who would have given a damn is dead now, so he’s free to stay right here and drink until he falls out of his fucking chair if that’s what he wants to do.





	The Ones Left Standing

**Author's Note:**

> For a tumblr prompt by @incognitajones:
> 
>  
> 
> _I think survivor's guilt and either Star Wars or MCU are two great tastes that would taste great together._
> 
>  
> 
> Fills the 'survivor's guilt' square on my Hurt/Comfort Bingo card.

By the time he’s twenty, Cassian Andor has outlived everyone he knew as a child.

That’s an exaggeration, probably. The village where he lived as a young boy isn’t in one of the parts of Fest that was blasted to glassy lifeless ruin by Imperial starships. It’s entirely possible that the old woman who used to count the rare, precious summer fruit into his mother’s basket at the _souk_ , her withered fingers lingering on the tough yellow skin of _majoi_ and sweet melons like she couldn’t bear to let them go— she might still be alive, still cultivating her trees in a windswept hollow of the mountain plain, still glaring at small boys in the market square as if their fingers were ripe for smacking. Or the girl from two houses over who used to watch him while his father ran errands and his mother was on a long haul, or his first tutor, or any one of a hundred faces he saw every day of his childhood. They might still be alive, but on some level Cassian can’t bring himself to believe it.

How could they still be alive when his mother’s ship was blown out of the sky on a training mission, when his father was gut-shot by Stormtroopers and left to bleed out in the dusty street?

How could any of them still be living now?

“Everyone,” he murmurs, peering into the amber liquid in his glass. There’s a lot less of it than he thought there was. “They all… all of them.”

It’s not often that he drinks like this. A rebel base after a mission this successful is usually just a few degrees shy of a drunken orgy, the inevitable result of a few hundred young people who don’t expect to live out the year, high on success and crowded together with nothing better to do than drink and fuck, the sloppy, weepy, half-wild kind of drunkenness that always sets his teeth on edge.

Usually, Cassian will go find something useful to do with himself and have an excuse to avoid all of this. Usually.

He’s not the only one drinking alone in a pool of miserable silence, but most of the others are converged upon sooner or later, hauled up by friendly hands and taken off to bed.

Not him, though. There’s no one here to drag Cassian off to bed, not anymore. Leeta was the last one, his partner, his gunner, the only living person he’s known for more than a few months, and now she’s gone, blown to pieces covering _his_ escape because he wasn’t fast enough. 

Everyone who would have given a damn is dead now, so he’s free to stay right here and drink until he falls out of his fucking chair if that’s what he wants to do.

The clomping metallic sound of footsteps is his only warning before the glass is plucked out of his hands by ungentle robotic fingers, squeezing tight enough to crush the fragile alloy into pieces and send rotgut splashing across the dirty tabletop.

“I was drinking that,” he mumbles, wiping a splash of liquor from his cheek with clumsy fingers.

“My apologies, Captain Andor,” K-2SO says blandly, letting the mangled glass drop from its fingers. “I must have misjudged my own strength.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“No, the droid agrees. “I didn’t. You’re being very stupid. You’ll need to be fit to fly again tomorrow, and yet you’re sitting here busily poisoning that fragile organic brain of yours.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Cassian snaps, shoving himself out of his chair. His head spins when he tries to stand, and he just barely manages to brace himself on the edge of the table. A cold metal hand clamps onto his elbow an instant later, steadying him. Despite K-2’s earlier protestation, its grip is painfully gentle.

“You’re grieving,” the droid observes eventually.

“Fuck off.”

“No,” it says thoughtfully. “I don’t think I will. I’m putting you to bed. I suggest you cooperate.”

“Fine,” Cassian grumbles, forcing himself to let go of the edge of the table. Cooperating is the last thing he wants to do right now, but he knows from experience that the only other option at present is causing a loud, embarrassing scene that he’ll lose anyway.

K-2 leads him through the too-hot, too-noisy crowd of revelers out into the cool darkness of the service passage. The door slides shut behind them with a metallic _clang_ , and Cassian leans against the cold metal wall, puts his head back. There’s a lump in his throat like he swallowed something jagged. K-2 doesn’t speak.

“Sorry,” he offers eventually.

“As I said. You’re grieving.”

“I’m, I—” he breaks off, swipes a hand over his eyes. They’re dry, which might actually be worse. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s actually been able to cry for someone. “I get everyone killed. I’ll get you killed too, sooner or later.”

For a long moment, there’s just silence. Then cool fingers on his arm, an inhuman pressure that’s unexpectedly soothing.

“Droids don’t die,” K-2 says, perfectly assured. “If I’m damaged, you’ll repair me.”

Cassian coughs out a mangled kind of laugh. “I will. I swear I will.”

“I know,” K-2 tells him. “Now. Let’s get you to bed.”


End file.
